


walking in time

by venusbot



Series: tsukkiyama week 2019! [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Break Up, Happy Ending, M/M, gratituous use of metaphors relating to seasons, uhh... kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 15:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20066521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venusbot/pseuds/venusbot
Summary: Seasons change, Kei had learnt.





	walking in time

**Author's Note:**

> tsukkiyama week day five: seasons! 
> 
> welcome back gamers here's my first ever angst fic on this acc its a Mess pls don't snipe me<3 
> 
> title from 'walkin' in time' by the boyz (listen to it while reading!)

** _summer_ **

Kei tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, holding back a sigh. He was trying not to show how anxious he felt, or how uncomfortable, but the air inside the car had gotten so stuffy and awkward that there was no way his boyfriend hadn’t noticed. Tadashi hadn’t said a single word since he’d got into the car ten minutes earlier, and Kei felt like clawing his own goddamn skin off. 

“How was your day?” he forced himself to ask, after debating with himself internally for almost a minute. 

Tadashi’s response was clipped: “Fine.” 

Humming, Kei racked his brain for something to say. “How did class go? That shitty teacher still getting on your nerves?” 

“Not really,” Tadashi didn’t even look at Kei as he replied, choosing to stare out the car window instead. 

“That’s good.” 

A few more minutes of silence and Kei just couldn’t _ take _it anymore; couldn’t take the suffocation that surrounded them like a second skin. “Tadashi…” he started. “How long are you going to stay mad at me?” 

That got Tadashi’s attention on him immediately. 

“Until you stop being a fucking jerk,” came the reply, and _ ouch. _That hurt. But he couldn’t say that he didn’t deserve it. 

The traffic light changed to green and Kei turned his attention back onto the road, conversation stalling. He thought Tadashi would have calmed down by now - he didn’t want to start another argument. He considered not responding, for a moment, but he knew that they would have to have this conversation some day and they couldn’t keep pretending that nothing happened. “I already apologised, Tadashi.” 

He could hear Tadashi’s sharp inhale as he said the words, and immediately regretted them. _ (Why doesn’t he know what to say anymore?) _

“A few words aren’t going to get me to come running after you, Kei.” 

Kei opened his mouth to say something, maybe redeem himself, but try as he might, he couldn’t find the words. _ (How did this happen?) _

Luckily - or unluckily - for him, Tadashi continued talking. “I’m sick of this. You’re _ mean, _Kei. Meaner than you’ve ever been.” 

A sharp intake of breath. He wants to say that he didn’t mean it, didn’t mean any of the things he said, that they were just jokes and he thought that they had an understanding between them, but he can’t bring himself to do any of that. Instead, he tries to backtrack once again, in another attempt to avoid argument. “You were stressed, I was stressed, and I was awful. I know I was. I never wanted to hurt you.” 

“You don’t get to treat me like that, Kei. You don’t get to tell me what to do.” 

God, Kei was finding it so hard to stay calm about all this. Trying to focus on the road, he ignored the heat threatening to boil his blood. Through gritted teeth, he said, “You were overworking yourself! You needed to rest, and you kept pushing me away and I didn’t know what to do so I just lost it, okay?” 

“Don’t turn this around on me!” Tadashi cried. “You could have said that in so many other ways, you didn’t have to insult me and be awful and leave and pretend like _ nothing happened _ _ — _ _ !” _

And then Tadashi was crying, voice shaky and high-pitched and Kei wanted to look over at him so bad but he couldn’t do that while driving and he took a deep breath. The heat was still there; still in his veins, but this escalated too quickly. They were just having a drive home. Kei was picking Tadashi up from his tuition class, and he’d just gotten off his internship. They were both tired and frayed and angry. He couldn’t let this get over his head - they were already on the street that lead to their house. He should have held this off until they got home. 

Still not fully trusting himself to speak, Kei said, “Listen, I know classes are hard. I know you’re working hard too, but it’s summer and we’ve barely talked recently and you’re always with Yachi and it’s hard for me too, alright?” 

“Why are you bringing Yachi into this? What does she have to do with anything?” Tadashi’s voice hiked up towards the end, getting more and more high-pitched with every word. 

Kei didn’t know how to voice whatever was on his brain without ending up sounding like a possessive freak, so he did what he was best at: he kept quiet. He hid from his words, and so they never found him. 

He maneuvered the car into the garage, breaths uneven. Things were only getting worse - try as he might to fix them, he and Tadashi ended up arguing anyway. He didn’t want this; didn’t want the constant irritation running through his veins for no reason at all; the feeling of hopelessness and being lost and overwhelming _ guilt _that came after every argument. He pushed the thoughts from his mind for the moment, and parked the car, focusing on taming his breaths instead. His heart rate was still higher than it should have been, but he felt - calmer wasn’t the right word. Quieter. 

The sound of the brakes was loud in the hushed atmosphere. 

“Five years, Tsukki,” Tadashi murmured into the silence. Kei tried to pretend his breath didn’t hitch at the nickname; the nickname that he’d missed hearing more than anything. “Five years. Why are we still doing this?” 

“Don’t say that,” Kei whispered back. “Don’t say that.” 

The air conditioner is turned off, the windows are rolled up, and the air in the car is getting stale. They don’t move. 

Tadashi continues speaking. “This isn’t working. You can’t possibly think this is working at all.” 

Kei wills himself not to cry, tells himself he won’t cry, not when Tadashi was already crying and not when he was telling him the things he wanted to hear in the least. He doesn’t want to lose control again and say things he might regret - but he doesn’t know what to say. _ (How, how, how?) _

“I know it isn’t,” he manages to get out. “But it will. We’ll work things out. We always do,” 

He can hear the tears threatening to spill out of Tadashi’s eyes once again, and he wants to reach out and wipe them away. He’d always been the first to cry when they fought; the first to apologise, too. Some things had changed, others stayed exactly the way they were.

“Maybe I don’t want to _ work things out _ anymore,” Tadashi said, voice cracking. “We never had to do that before. Things should just _ work _, like they used to.” 

“I know. I know.” 

The words were slipping farther and farther out of his reach with every passing breath, and try as he might to gain any semblance of control over them, he was not prepared to hear what Tadashi had to say next. 

“It’s like you’re not my best friend anymore.”

Kei didn’t say anything. (He couldn’t.) After a few moments, Tadashi unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car - and _then, _Kei started crying. 

** _autumn _ **

Summer came and summer went, taking with it all the heated arguments that their house couldn’t seem to survive without. Where it had once felt like they couldn’t go a minute without getting angry at the other about something, the oncoming of August dampened the energy behind their fights. They existed like Neptune and Pluto; orbits forever interacting, but never at the same time. 

Tadashi was curled up on the sofa, watching old reruns of some animated TV show, when Kei came home that evening. He’d stayed back late at the internship and he was even more tired than he usually was - all he wanted at the moment was a warm bed and a good night’s sleep. 

Seeing Tadashi wrapped up in his blankets made him stall. He’d been about to head into their bedroom straight away but something about how open and _ delicate _the other boy looked, tugging his sheets close to himself as he silently laughed at the cartoons on screen, made Kei want to go over there and curl up with him. 

He hesitated in front of the bedroom door, hand hovering over the handle but body facing the TV. Ever since the fight in the car, which had been a little over two weeks ago, they hadn’t really… talked about it. _ It _being, of course, the constant tension and bad blood running between them for reasons neither of them was willing to admit. (Or maybe that was just Kei.) They’d been talking to each other a lot less in general, too - the fights had been stressful and heartbreaking, but at least they could both look the other in the eye. Now, they were just. Tired. 

Still debating whether he should go and join his boyfriend - did that even encapsulate what they were, anymore? - on the sofa, Kei started when Tadashi looked up and straight at him. 

“Stop thinking so much,” he said, quietly but firmly. Then he turned back around to his show like he nothing had happened. 

Kei wished that he had something just as meaningful and impactful to offer the other, but he was fresh out of one-liners. _ (What had happened to him?) _

Despite his hesitance, Kei stayed with him, that night. He didn’t curl up with Tadashi under the blankets as he would have very much liked to - instead, he sat on the other end of the sofa and stared stoically at the screen. His heartbeat was normal, his breaths weren’t shallow, he didn’t have trouble thinking; but there was something that seemed to almost itch at him from under his skin. He didn’t know if it was just his imagination, but he could’ve sworn he felt Tadashi eyeing him from where he was lying, and sighing quietly to himself. 

Even though physically, they were closer than they’d ever been for the past couple of weeks, the distance between them had never seemed greater. Kei longed to stretch his hand out, to say something, to fill in the gaping hole that had somehow formed in between them - but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything, he _ couldn’t. _

All he could do was sit there, trying to ignore Tadashi’s quiet breathing and pretend that his entire body didn’t feel at edge. 

The cartoons on screen were holding hands, and Kei felt a sudden toothpick pierce his heart. Feeling sure that he would come to regret it later, he sneaked a glance at Tadashi from the corner of his eye. The other boy had fallen asleep, by the looks of it - eyes shut and eyelashes dusting the freckles on his cheek. Everything in him yelled at him to reach out and touch those cheeks, to watch Tadashi wake up and tell him what was _ really _on his mind. 

(He didn’t.) 

━━✶━━

Things only seemed to get worse, after that night. It was rare that Kei even saw Tadashi around the house anymore - the other always seemed to be out somewhere, doing something; or holed up in another room, studying. Not that Kei was always at home, either - he found himself putting in more hours in his internship than was needed, and threw his all into classwork. With the onset of the new college year, at least he had more things to keep himself busy and distracted from the loneliness that threatened to drown him every time he found himself without anything to do. 

Which wasn’t to say that the two didn’t interact at all. They still exchanged greetings, talking only when absolutely necessary. _ Milk, groceries, the newspaper. _Their house, once always full of life and love and Tadashi’s laughter, had turned into a graveyard for their hearts. Each room was shrouded in a cloud of memories that could never be recreated, and the air ran stuffy as it moved through the house. Kei hated it more than anything. 

The weather wasn’t improving, either. Colder days found themselves stuck in the house, something that had never been a problem for them before - but the hot chocolate and company was gone, now. All that remained was a fallen leaf, small enough to be crushed underfoot. 

  


** _winter _ **

It was the second day of November when Kei realised that he hadn’t spoken a single word to Tadashi for an entire week. 

The digital clock by the bed told him that it was 12:33 in the morning, and Kei found himself staring up at the ceiling fan. Tadashi hadn’t come home yet, and while that was common recently, he couldn’t help the pricks of anxiety that struck his heart anyway. He couldn’t help the hope that kept bubbling up every now and then, telling him that it wouldn’t be long before he’d be home again, that everything would be okay. He wished he could stop fooling himself. 

Turning around and lying on his side, Kei stared out the window instead. It led out into the backyard; nothing noteworthy, but the sight of the greenery outside calmed him down, somewhat. He knew it wasn’t long before the greenness disappeared and the only thing remaining was white, white, white - so he drank it all up while he could. 

He turned around again. Restlessness. An itching, hurting under his skin. 

━━✶━━

The days passed by sluggishly, each one seeming longer than the last. Kei forced himself through classes, internship over for the time being - even when all he wanted to do was sleep, he forced himself to pore through pages and pages of notes and textbooks. Midterms were right around the corner, and he directed all his pent up frustration and sadness and anger into studying as best he could. 

Tadashi sightings were rarer than ever. (Sometimes, it felt like they didn’t even live in the same house, anymore.) He’d moved out of their shared bedroom, instead opting to sleep in the guest room. Kei tried to pretend that the sudden coldness of the bed was simply because of the weather changes and had nothing to do with the empty spot in his heart.

The few times that Kei _ did _see him, though, Tadashi looked worse than anytime he’d ever seen him before. There were dark circles under his eyes, his hair was a mess, and he looked like he’d been working himself to the core. His movements were more tired than they’d ever been, and it was a surprise how he managed to get anything done at all. 

But what surprised Kei the most was his own lack of any reaction. 

Under normal circumstances, he would’ve wasted no time scolding Tadashi on not getting enough rest, on overworking himself, on not taking care of his health, _ you idiot. _ But now, as he saw the other boy stumble into the kitchen for breakfast on a random morning, he didn’t feel like saying anything at all. His mouth remained clamped shut, and so did Tadashi’s - they existed outside of each other’s solar systems, now. Out of sight, and out of mind. 

He felt something in his heart harden at the thought that he didn’t care about Tadashi anymore - he told himself that it wasn’t anything like that at all, that it was something else altogether. That he could never stop caring for Tadashi because he was Tadashi and he would _ always _care about him.

(There was a tiny voice in his head that told him he didn’t know how to survive without Tadashi. That they’d turned into a singular, glorified entity in his head, the _TsukishimaAndYamaguchi_ from high school. That he should let him go, that he should learn to live, that he should get out of the fucking house. 

He told it to shut up.) 

Exams, when they finally did arrive, passed by in a blur. He didn’t see any signs of Tadashi during the week, either. Kei didn’t quite remember what he’d written in some of his papers at all - but he didn’t have it in himself to care. He’d survived midterms, and that was more than enough for him. 

He wondered if people would call what he was going through ‘heartbreak’. If it was the thing that they described in the songs, in the movies, in the books that everyone had always cried over. But try as he might, Kei couldn’t find a single song or movie or book that summed up how he felt at the moment. 

━━✶━━

It was the twelfth day of February when Kei woke up to find that Tadashi was gone. 

Tadashi was gone, taking Kei’s ice-cold heart with him and leaving behind a yellow Post-it note. 

** _spring _ **

_ Seasons change, _ Kei had learnt. 

_ Times change along with them. _

Somewhere along the way, whatever that he and Tadashi had shared in their hearts for each other had fizzled out and - died wasn’t the right word. Changed. 

Kei had been so fixated on keeping things as they always were, on staying with Tadashi because he was _ Tadashi _ , that he’d missed out on whatever had changed. He hadn’t seen anything except the past that lay behind them - he couldn’t focus on where he was currently standing, where _ they _were currently standing. 

He couldn’t remember that they were not the same people that they had been five years ago. 

The Tsukishima and Yamaguchi of the past were almost two different people when compared to who they were now. Tadashi had finally grown into his skin, stepping up and standing out and speaking for himself - something that others would never have thought possible. (Kei always knew, though. He knew the fire that hid under the lowered eyes, the heat behind the embarrassed glances, the passion in his eyes whenever he started talking about something he loved.) Tadashi _ evolved. _

And Kei - well. Kei eclipsed. 

He wasn’t wrong when he’d said that he would never stop caring about Tadashi. The other boy still held a special place in his heart, and he always would. His first friend, first love, first heartache, and first heartbreak - all of that couldn’t be thrown away so easily. 

Which is why, as he watched the cherry blossoms decorate the pavement from the window of a cafe he hadn’t visited in a long time, Kei smiled. He was waiting for his best friend. 

**Author's Note:**

> WOOO thank u for reading!! my irl helped me come up with the idea for this fic and i liked it a lot so i hope i did it some justice? the pacing of this didn't quite go as i wanted it to + constructive criticism is always appreciated!! 
> 
> u can talk to me on [twt](https://twitter.com/transgiyuu) :D


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